Androgen deprivation therapy with Leuprolide acetate for treatment of advanced prostate cancer

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Hormone sensitive advanced prostate cancer (PCa) is an incurable disease that is treated with a variety of hormonal therapies targeting the androgen/androgen receptor signaling axis. For decades androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) by surgical or chemical castration is the gold standard for the treatment of advanced PCa.

Areas covered: This review discusses the pharmacological features of Leuprolide, a luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) agonists/analog and the most commonly used drug in ADT.

Expert opinion: Although Leuprolide has been on the market for more than 30 years it is still the leading option for ADT and serves as a basis for most multimodal therapy concepts. The fact that with the onset of castration-resistance in late stage metastatic disease, a prolongation of ADT in combination with a second line hormonal manipulation is recommended supports the importance of the compound for daily clinical practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Adverse events
• Androgen deprivation therapy
• Leuprolide acetate
• Metastatic disease
• Prostate cancer

Declaration of interest

M Rashid Hoda has been an invited speaker for Sanofi Aventis, Medtronics and AMI. M W Kramerhas been an invited speaker for Pierre Fabre, Sanofi Aventis, Janssen, Bayer, Pfizer, Astellas, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ferring, Novartis and Eisai. A S Merseburger has been study principal investigator/sub-principal investigator for Novartis, Bayer, Pfizer, Wyeth, Ipsen, TEVA, Astellas, Janssen and GlaxoSmithKline; an invited speaker for Janssen, GlaxoSmithKline, Ipsen, Novartis, Astellas, Bayer, Sanofi Aventis, TEVA, Hexal and Takeda and has been on the advisory boards for: Ipsen, Novartis, Astellas, Roche, Janssen, Bayer, Pfizer ad TEVA. M V Cronauer has been an invited speaker for Astellas, and has received a research grant from Astellas Pharma GmbH. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.